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Nicoise salad

post #1 of 27
5/27/12 at 4:39am
Thread Starter 

There are lots of summer salady one-course meals, like panzanella, caprese salad or pasta, rice salad, quinoa salad, etc. 

 

But when i can find the fresh borlotti beans (red and white spotted)  (a whole different taste from the dried) i like to make Nicoise salad. 

What do you put in it?

 

My list is

the boiled beans

string beans

boiled potatoes

hard boiled eggs

tomatoes

tuna

 I make little piles of all of these around a large flat dish,

then strew

anchovies (salted, washed)

gaeta olives (they're usually on hand)

sliced red (tropea if i can get them) onions

 and olive oil, salt and pepper

 

so appealing when it's hot. 

 

sometimes i may roast peppers and peel them and add strips of it. 

 

I guess it's already rich but wondered what else i might put (or substitute).  I don;t care about authentic, just good (and easy is nice)

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #2 of 27
5/27/12 at 5:01am

Mmm, sounds good.  I've never made or eaten a salad nicoise. 

In a nutshell
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post #3 of 27
5/27/12 at 2:44pm

siduri: Your salad is spectacular, but if you're looking for an extreme departure from the classic Nicoise, you can add some small melon cubes. Great with tuna, great with anchovies, great with olives. It will give the salad a Full HD/3D/6.1 emotional touch.

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post #4 of 27
5/27/12 at 3:16pm
Thread Starter 

well, that's interesting.  I never would have thought of it.  Melon is good with prosciutto, i'll try it. 

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #5 of 27
5/27/12 at 3:33pm

Hey Siduri, no vinegar? No acid?

 

When I make Niçoise salad I like to use

- steamed young potatoes,

- green beans,

- good quality canned tuna,

- black olives,

- red onions,

- sometimes scallions or onion chives or garlic chives,

- soft boiled eggs, 

- red wine vinegar, olive oil, S & P. 

 

Other ideas of possible ingredients would be: 

- raw green or red bell pepper,

- fava beans, 

- celery,

- small artichokes

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post #6 of 27
5/27/12 at 3:57pm

siduri,

capers, lupini beans, maybe cornichons...for non 'authentico' and really more antipasti then nicoise, perhaps some marinated creminis or button mushrooms,some type of wonderful cheese that you have access to, very small pickled asparagus and the name escapes me now but the bright green tart small olives(italian). also maybe pickle the haricot verts, just for kicks. the french are most certainly rolling their eyes...mon dieur!  fwiw, i make the vinaigrette for a nicoise salade with olive juice in place of red wine vinegar, and i do prefer to use a tarragon mustard.

joey

and of course, hearts of palm


Edited by durangojo - 5/28/12 at 7:46am

food is like love...it should be entered into with abandon or not at all        Harriet Van Horne

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post #7 of 27
5/27/12 at 11:54pm
Thread Starter 

all interesting ideas

thanks

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #8 of 27
5/28/12 at 3:19pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by durangojo View Post

the french are most certainly rolling their eyes...mon dieur!


Most French people don't realize that when they order a Niçoise salad from a restaurant, what they're getting is only very losely related to the original recipe. 

 

The original Niçoise salad is a raw-veggie salad - no cooked veggies, no potatoes, no green beans, only raw veggies originating from the Niçoise region (you won't be able to find any of those if you're more than 200 miles away from Nice). The original ingredients were any raw tiny in-season local veggies: fava beans (fevettes), raw tiny Nice purple artichokes, a special kind of onion chive (cebette), raw green or red bell peppers, tomatoes, celery, eggs and anchovies. It was also common to rub the salad bowl with garlic before preparing the salad, and to add fresh basil. 


Edited by French Fries - 5/28/12 at 3:30pm
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post #9 of 27
5/29/12 at 12:23am
Thread Starter 

Interesting french fries. Italians (or Romans?) go wild for raw fave beans in the summer (it's traditional here to eat them with pecorino) but i never liked them much.  The artichokes, now that's a good idea - we certainly have those here in the gazillions, and you can even buy them cleaned in the outdoor markets.  are they just sliced raw? 

Sounds good.

thanks

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #10 of 27
5/29/12 at 2:05am

The artichokes are tiny purple ones, you can just remove the leaves and use the heart, julienne it raw. The Nicoise fevettes are smaller and more tender than fava beans - well depending on the size of your fava beans obviously. I love them raw in small quantity. I'll have to try with pecorino (do they add anything else? Olive oil, seasoning?) I love them cooked but not too cooked, their flavor is then completely different. As kids we used to eat deep fried dried fava beans with lots of salt and LOTS of black pepper... it was like french fries. :)

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post #11 of 27
5/29/12 at 6:14am
Quote:
Originally Posted by French Fries View Post


Most French people don't realize that when they order a Niçoise salad from a restaurant, what they're getting is only very losely related to the original recipe. 

 

The original Niçoise salad is a raw-veggie salad - no cooked veggies, no potatoes, no green beans, only raw veggies originating from the Niçoise region (you won't be able to find any of those if you're more than 200 miles away from Nice). The original ingredients were any raw tiny in-season local veggies: fava beans (fevettes), raw tiny Nice purple artichokes, a special kind of onion chive (cebette), raw green or red bell peppers, tomatoes, celery, eggs and anchovies. It was also common to rub the salad bowl with garlic before preparing the salad, and to add fresh basil. 

sorry FF,

it was meant to be funny...interesting though. i thought that a nicoise salad was an arranged salad, not tossed.

joey

food is like love...it should be entered into with abandon or not at all        Harriet Van Horne

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post #12 of 27
5/29/12 at 8:59am
Thread Starter 

Fava beans and pecorino are a typical thing you bring into the country and eat just like that, shelling the beans and popping them in your mouth and cutting off a piece of pecorino.  It's the typical snack "fuori porta" (outside the walls of the city, which unfortunately now is simply more city, and more city, and more city....

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #13 of 27
5/29/12 at 12:04pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by siduri View Post

Fava beans and pecorino are a typical thing you bring into the country and eat just like that, shelling the beans and popping them in your mouth and cutting off a piece of pecorino.  It's the typical snack "fuori porta" (outside the walls of the city, which unfortunately now is simply more city, and more city, and more city....

 

Thanks siduri, I will try it!!


Edited by French Fries - 5/29/12 at 12:26pm
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post #14 of 27
5/29/12 at 12:13pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by durangojo View Post

sorry FF,

it was meant to be funny...interesting though. i thought that a nicoise salad was an arranged salad, not tossed.

joey

Of course Joey, no problem. While Niçoise is often served nicely arranged on a plate in restaurants, at home we would toss the green beans in the vinaigrette with the thinly sliced red onions and canned tuna, put it in a bowl and arrange potato wedges, tomato wedges, egg wedges and black olives on top. Depending on the time and mood of the cook, some of the garnishes may have just been tossed along with the beans (for example the tomato, olives and potatoes may just be tossed with the beans while only the eggs are used for garnish). Keep in mind I am not from Nice, I grew up exactly 200 miles from Nice, which makes it not local to me. I'm sure someone from Nice would laugh at all that. lol.gif

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post #15 of 27
5/30/12 at 12:44am
Thread Starter 

Yeah, I was wondering.  We say "french fries" but the french don't call them french fries, and we talk about "french toast" but the french don't call it french toast.  We say "bolognese sauce" but in bologna they just say "ragu'" - and that's for things that are actually made and eaten in these places.  Let's not get into "Italian dressing" which is not even eaten in Italy - they don't "make" "dressing" here, but just pour oil and vinegar on the salad and mix well with the greens.  Only one person i know here makes "dressing" in the sense of mixing the ingredients before putting on the salad, and she's french and does a nice "vinaigrette" and doesn't call it "french".. 

 

So I wonder if in Nice they just make salad, and if "salade nicoise" is not just a name used by people outside of Nice for this type of salad.  Which would account for the variety of ingredients, the arrangement done nicely in a flat dish, etc.  I mean, apart from restaurants in Nice, (which would probably have incorporated "nicoise" into their menu because it is a resort town), I wonder if the locals don;t just call it "salade"  

 

I wonder, at this point, if its southern counterpart, "insalata caprese" is just a salad people will make, among others, in capri and the naples area, and tourists from other parts of italy on vacation there loved it and referred to it as caprese.  In Naples do they call pizza with tomato, mozzarella and anchovies "pizza napolitana" or just pizza. 

 

In Boston when i was a kid, "boston baked beans" were just "baked bean" - and only now, with greater variety in stores and more people living in different cities than they were born in, do they call them "BOSTON baked beans" even in boston, but not all the time. 

 

Sorry, this is a linguistic and cultural digression and doesn;t have much to do with salads - but that's what's fun about these threads!

 

. 

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #16 of 27
5/30/12 at 4:33am

Ah Siduri, we always digress in this manner.  In the states we order "coffee" but in other countries it needs to be specified as american coffee or drip-coffee.  I wonder what they call french press in France. 

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post #17 of 27
5/30/12 at 2:32pm

A cafetiere?  That's what we call a FP in the UK!

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post #18 of 27
5/30/12 at 3:01pm

In French, cafetière just means coffee maker (in the broad, general term), so it could be any type of coffee maker. 

 

I honestly didn't know how to name that specific type of cafetière (other than "a Bodum") so I looked it up in a French catalog and they call it "Cafetière à piston". I'd never heard that before. 

 

So how do they say "Cafetière Italienne" in Italy? lol.gif

 

cafetiere-italienne.jpg

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post #19 of 27
5/30/12 at 3:06pm
macchinetta del caffe and/or caffiettiera In English, they're called "Moka pots." We don't own one.

We do have three French presses, though. Two are made by Bodum, the third by a company itself named "Cafetiere." I believe they're headquartered in the UK, and most of their pots are made for the British market.

BDL
What were we talking about?
 
http://www.cookfoodgood.com
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post #20 of 27
5/31/12 at 12:03am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by French Fries View Post

In French, cafetière just means coffee maker (in the broad, general term), so it could be any type of coffee maker. 

 

I honestly didn't know how to name that specific type of cafetière (other than "a Bodum") so I looked it up in a French catalog and they call it "Cafetière à piston". I'd never heard that before. 

 

So how do they say "Cafetière Italienne" in Italy? lol.gif

 

cafetiere-italienne.jpg

"La Moka" (or "la Mocha")  K doesn't exist in italian but the coffee pot is usually called La Moka.  (Mocha does not imply any chocolate in it) 

or, as bdl says, "la macchinetta del caffe' "

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #21 of 27
6/1/12 at 10:09am

I'll toss this in, as my 2 cents.  Worked for an italian family for almost 10 years...granted I'm in NY, it's different.  My boss referred to both the commercial coffee-maker and the pot I used to make espresso with as "cafetieri," "cafetiera" for singular.  I'm probably spelling it wrong, as I only know spoken italian, and a lot of that is just curse words.  Correction, the majority of that is curse words. Ok, almost all of that is curse words.

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post #22 of 27
6/1/12 at 1:17pm
Thread Starter 

Caffettiera is the spelling - some call it that, but it means any kind of coffee maker, from a drip machine (which have recently been introduced here) to the espresso machine.  More common in everyday use is "macchina del caffe'" which is also generic, but is more used.  And to specify the one with the little man pointing up (the one in the picture) it's called la moka.  There was a time when the moka was pretty much the only coffee pot in homes so it was often called la macchina del caffe' or simply "la macchinetta" but now that many people have little home espresso makers and some even have filter pots, they'll call it the Moka. 

There's also the Napoletana  - which is a little filter coffee pot that used to be the only one for home use - http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.collezione-online.it/caffettiera%2520napoletana%2520alluminio.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.collezione-online.it/vecchia_caffettiera_napoletana_alluminio.htm&h=615&w=437&sz=26&tbnid=swTWgUKn-RbfNM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=64&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dcaffettiera%2Bnapoletana%26tbm%3Disch%26tbo%3Du&zoom=1&q=caffettiera+napoletana&usg=__2HfhtSuxzsu9OR1ULA5ZfOedWVM=&docid=rpgZeh3F57xMmM&sa=X&ei=ySLJT8X5E4iG4gSEzMEw&ved=0CJMBEPUBMAI&dur=3853

 

You put coffee in a central capsule with tiny holes, and water in the bottom.  Put it on the stove to boil - a little hole will start leaking and making noise as the water hits the gas fire, and you know it's boiling, then you turn it over and hope you don;t burn your hands, and let it drip through. 

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #23 of 27
6/3/12 at 5:08am

We went from nicoise salad to italian coffee.  Cheftalk is a weird place smile.gif

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post #24 of 27
6/3/12 at 7:18am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by Koukouvagia View Post

We went from nicoise salad to italian coffee.  Cheftalk is a weird place smile.gif


Yeah, Koukouvagia - it resembles something but i can't remember what it is..... 

oh yeah

real life smile.gif

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #25 of 27
6/3/12 at 7:30am

I wouldn't mind enoying an espresso at Caffe Ciampini or Tazza 'd Oro. Coffee in Rome always reminds me of the The Talented Mr. Ripley and the Caffe by the Spanish Steps. This thread is only fueling my recent interest in picking up a La Pavonni.

 

Dave

I think the most wonderful thing in the world is another chef. I'm always excited about learning new things about food.
Paul Prudhomme
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post #26 of 27
6/3/12 at 9:14am
Thread Starter 
Quote:
Originally Posted by DuckFat View Post

I wouldn't mind enoying an espresso at Caffe Ciampini or Tazza 'd Oro. Coffee in Rome always reminds me of the The Talented Mr. Ripley and the Caffe by the Spanish Steps. This thread is only fueling my recent interest in picking up a La Pavonni.

 

Dave

What's La Pavonni, Dave?

"Siduri said, 'Gilgamesh, where are you roaming? You will never find the eternal life that you seek...Savour your food, make each of your days a delight, ... let music and dancing fill your house, love the child who holds you by the hand and give your wife pleasure in your embrace.'"
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post #27 of 27
6/3/12 at 9:21am

La Pavoni is a company that makes espresso machines. I've wanted a manual one for years.

 

http://www.pavonishop.com/

 

 

Dave

I think the most wonderful thing in the world is another chef. I'm always excited about learning new things about food.
Paul Prudhomme
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